MANCHESTER United are threatening to sue former Old Trafford security chief Ned Kelly after he breached confidentiality.

MANCHESTER United are threatening to sue former Old Trafford security chief Ned Kelly after he breached confidentiality.

Kelly, who acted as bodyguard to Sir Alex Ferguson and several players before being sacked when he was exposed as a ticket tout, has had a book serialised in a Sunday newspaper today.

United tried to take out an injunction on Kelly’s book but, after failing to discover the nature of Kelly’s “revelations” in advance, they failed.

Now the club’s lawyers are poring over the book’s contents to see if there is any retrospective action they can take.

The club is now planning to “rise above” the scurrilous allegations in the book, but Old Trafford officials are privately furious at what they see as a betrayal by Kelly.

By yesterday, United had got wind of the content of the book, and one Old Trafford source told Sunday Pink: “We believe the book is peddling scurrilous rumours and tittle-tattle from a disgruntled ex-security guard who was sacked after a newspaper exposed him as a ticket tout.

“His book is really not worthy of any further response. Her is a former employee who has let the club down.”

Kelly’s book breaks the confidentiality agreement written into the contract between his former company SPS, which changed its name to CES after his departure, in order to distance itself from the former SAS man.

It was believed United had sought an injunction last week, when the first instalment of Kelly’s book was due to be published in a Sunday newspaper, bt United say that the newspaper backed off before it came to that.

Sources at the club also say that Kelly had been touting the book around for a year, and that only got a buyer for its serialisation due to the current climate, with football already in the gutter.

But both the newspaper and the publishers have received letters from United’s solicitors promising legal action if there is anything libellous in the book.

The problem lies in the fact that, despite the confidentiality clause, there is little that can be done to punish a former employee who s planning to break it.